Mr. Speaker, it will soon be four months since the House of Commons recessed so that the Prime Minister and his Cabinet could put together the throne speech. The President of the Treasury Board must certainly be pleased with what her leader had to say.
First of all, she mentioned the quality of life of all Canadians. I have read and reread the throne speech, and was even present when the Governor General read it, but I found no short-term solutions to serious problems such as the fisheries dispute, which is worsening daily in the Atlantic provinces.
There is nothing to put an end to the arrival of boatloads of immigrants on the west coast. Nor is there any clarification of the government's position with respect to Onex, which would like to buy and merge Air Canada and Canadian Airlines, or anything to repair the grievous damage this government has done to health care, social services and postsecondary education. There is nothing to put right the terrible unfairness in EI, for which barely 42% of unemployed workers who pay premiums qualify when they lose their job.
There is nothing to narrow the gap between rich and poor, which grows wider with each passing year. I wonder whether the minister, the President of the Treasury Board, was one of the 500 people who marched in Montreal yesterday to try to make people, especially rich people, aware of the terrible straits in which several hundreds of thousands of Canadians find themselves. With many, many children coming to school hungry every day, donations must now be sought so that they can be provided with breakfast and lunch.
When the minister talks about the quality of life and the environment of Canadians and Quebecers, can the minister tell us whether or not she intends to do something about these oversights in last week's throne speech? I await her comments.